The Vitals

My name is Kristin. I live with my husband (A.), three young sons (Cubby, Charlie, and Jack), one infant daughter (Poppy), and old collie dog (Mia) less than a mile from the Canadian border in the far northern woods of upstate New York. Once upon a time I was going country. Now I'm gone.

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Thursday, April 17, 2008

Partying Like It's 1899

Exciting news! We decided to have our (very old, totally ridiculous) water system overhauled. Henry the Plumber showed up yesterday to begin the serious work and, of course, disconnected the water. He promised that before he left he would reconnect at least the kitchen and downstairs bathroom so we could have water overnight. Can you see where this is going?

Henry was still working on that when it was time for me to start dinner. At first I thought "Eh, I don't need water to make dinner," which is why when A. called and asked if he should pick something up on the way home, I said no. Clearly, I was hitting the gin and tonic a little too early.

Further proof that the gin and tonic had affected my judgment: I decided to make something that requires raw sausage. It is generally acknowledged that washing one's hands after playing with raw pork is a Good Thing. But, no water in the house.

Now, if we lived in a city, we'd be pretty well screwed at this point. Of course, if we lived in a city, we'd probably have water. But I digress. ANYWAY, one benefit of living in a house built before any kind of modern conveniences is the ability to function when the modern systems fail. So we have no less than 3 sources of water. There's a stream that (sometimes) runs along the edge of the property, the old barn cisterns out back (don't worry; I didn't know what a cistern was until I moved here either--there's no shame in looking it up), and a huge lake about 200 yards from the house.

I went with the cistern because 1) It's the closest and 2) I don't have to get my feet wet to get to the water. First, I needed a bucket. After rejecting a filthy bucket that had clearly been used to haul around potting soil, I decided I'd better break out my special House Bucket. The House Bucket is the one I try to keep sacred for household chores, because any bucket just left about will be used for sheep mineral, or corn, or dirt, or any other variety of nasty thing that I don't want in my water.

So, House Bucket secured. Now I needed rope to lower the House Bucket into the cistern. But A. keeps taking all the rope to tie down the scrap metal in his truck, so all the rope is in A.'s truck, and A.'s truck is with him at work. I finally found a length of clothesline in the shed and lowered the bucket. But plastic buckets float on the water. Of course they do, Kristin, you moron. Next, search out a stick to poke the bucket down into the water to fill. Then haul full bucket up, bring into house, heat water on stove, pour into one bowl for initial dunking of hands and another bowl for rinsing the soap. And NOW I can handle raw sausage and finally make dinner. Jesus.

And OF COURSE we had no water last night or this morning. A. was halfway through his shower this morning when the pressure gave out, so he had to rinse off with the rest of the (freezing, none-too-clean) bucket of water I had laboriously procured the night before.

Henry should be here any minute (please, God) to keep working on this situation. In the meantime, if you need me, I'll be drawing water with a rope and bucket and dreaming of municipal water.